


Ten thousand seconds

by Thenerdintheattic



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Modern AU, Reibert - Freeform, YumiHisu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 02:26:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17499818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thenerdintheattic/pseuds/Thenerdintheattic
Summary: Bertholdt has an accident. Reiner doesn't react very well.





	Ten thousand seconds

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty heavy: major character death and violence.

_“Be right back. Wait for me.”_

Everything around him moves in slow motion. Of course, he knows it’s just his brain playing tricks, making sure he’s well aware of everyone around him, all those people either running towards the scene with that look of determination on their faces or standing there, horrified. He’s very aware of that plane high above his head, leaving a white trail in the blue sky, and the faint vibration under his feet where an underground line passes. He’s very aware of the blood _(so much blood)_ sprayed on the asphalt. He’s very aware of the violence of what just happened and he knows he should run towards him, make sure he’s ok _(how can he be, there’s so much blood)_ but he doesn’t move. He’s paralysed on the sidewalk when everything around him keeps moving. It's like being in the middle of a storm as everything is being destroyed, utterly powerless and it makes him feel dizzy. He wants everything to stop. His brain. Time. The fucking world. Slowly, painfully, he takes a step backwards, almost stumbles, regains his balance at the last moment.

“Reiner! Reiner!”

Someone is shaking him. He closes his eyes. Maybe it’s all just a very bad dream and he’ll wake up in his bed. Bertholdt will be next to him. Or above him. Or under him. It doesn’t matter.

“Reiner!”

He opens his eyes but everything is the same. He’s still in the street in front of stupid Starbucks, Historia is still shaking him like he's a damn tree and Bertholdt’s body is still twisted in the middle of the street, half of his skull forever imprinted on the frame of a fucking Prius. _(so much blood … have to do something about this blood on Bertholdt’s shirt. The stain won’t go away.)_ A Prius. Fucking electrical, silent car. If that goody two shoes guy with his ecological car and fair trade coffee cup had had a normal car like everyone else, Bertholdt would have heard him. He would have heard and he wouldn’t have crossed the road. He would have waited and he wouldn’t be losing all his blood on his new shirt, the one he's planning to wear at work on Monday. He’s so proud of the damn thing and Reiner doesn’t even like it that much. He prefers his Bertholdt with nothing on. _(why is he so white?)_

“Reiner…”

The voice is softer. Less insisting. He looks down at Historia. She’s white as a sheet _(is she losing her blood on the street too?)_ and shaking and trying to pull him back without much success. He finally complies and takes a step backwards but that’s when his body decides that enough is enough and he just falls on his ass in slow motion. Historia sits next to him. She looks like she’s about to be sick.

“We saw what happened from inside,” she says weakly. “Ymir ran outside, she’s called 911, she’s with him now. But I couldn’t do anything. I… I’m useless.”

“His shirt will be dirty.”

***

Ymir is pacing up and down impatiently. Every minute or so she looks at the clock, sighs and starts pacing again. Any other time, Reiner would lose his temper, tell her to stop and sit down like everyone else but it somehow comforts him to know what she’s about to do. He follows her with his eyes, like hypnotised. He’s forgotten about Historia. She’s next to him, still shaking faintly. She’s cried - or he thinks he’s heard her cry before - but her eyes are dry now.

He doesn’t have any conception of time anymore. It feels like the “accident” as the doctors and nurses call it, has happened hours ago, days ago, seconds ago. He just waits, he’ll wait as long as it takes, but he’s not going to leave that place without Bertholdt. He doesn’t see how that could be anyway. Leave without Bertholdt. What would be next? Going home without him? He chuckles. That’s just preposterous. Ymir stops pacing and looks at him.

“What’s so funny?”

“You got blood on your cheek. Right under your eye.”

She wets her fingers with her saliva and starts scrubbing her face angrily. As soon as they’d arrived at the ER, she had disappeared in a bathroom to clean all the blood, she had even asked the nurses to give her one of those paper shirts.

“Is it gone?”

She sounds hysterical. Reiner nods and everything goes back to normal. Ymir starts pacing again, Historia doesn’t utter a sound and Reiner thinks that he might ask his mother a few tips to clean that shirt.

A million years pass. Or five minutes. They hear Annie arrive even before they see her. The regular tap-tap sound of her heels on the linoleum gives her away. She bursts into the waiting room, dishevelled and out of breath. She stops for a second, sweeps the room with her cold glare and starts towards her friends. Reiner has no idea who thought of calling her.

“What happened? How is he? Have you guys seen a doctor yet?” Her ability not to be out of breath when she's obviously been running is astonishing. Reiner makes a mental note to ask her about that. 

Ymir stops pacing. Historia looks up. The comfortable, steady routine they had established is broken. Reiner starts biting his nails. His whole body has been numb in a while but with the intrusion, he feels a piercing pain in his stomach.

“Got hit by a car. He’s still in surgery,” Ymir explains. Annie looks like she taken a bad blow to the stomach. But she remains steady. “It’s looking pretty bad.”

She sits down slowly.

“Ok,” she says. “Ok.”

She takes her head in her hands. The pain in Reiner’s stomach is getting worse. He looks at the clock. It’s almost five. He tries to think how long they’ve been there. They'd decided to meet Ymir and Historia for a coffee after lunch. He remembers that the girls had been there before them - Ymir had complained. " _We said two, not a fucking quarter past."_  The rest is less clear. Bertholdt had forgotten his stupid wallet. He'd gone back to the car to get it. He'd crossed the street. A quarter past two. Almost three hours.  Ninety minutes. Ten thousand seconds, give or take a few hundred. It doesn't matter. Bertholdt said he’d be back, Bertholdt said to wait for him. So he’s waiting.

It’s almost six when a doctor comes to see them. He looks hesitant, too young to be a surgeon. 

“Mister Hoover’s family?”

Annie and Historia almost jump to their feet. Ymir waves towards Reiner who just looks up. He doesn’t feel able to stand up just yet. Maybe later. When Bertholdt comes.

“He’s his boyfriend.”

Ymir looks like she’s about to bite.

“Can I speak to you alone?”

The doctor is quite good looking. Not Reiner’s type but he can’t wait to make Bertholdt jealous, telling him all about this sexy doctor. He looks at his friends. Historia is holding to Ymir who looks expectantly at him. Annie looks pissed but he tries not to take it personally. She always looks pissed.

“Can they stay?” he asks. “They’re friends.”

The doctor nods slowly. He takes a look at all of them and starts : 

“As you know Mister Hoover …”

“Bertholdt.” Annie interrupts. “Not mister Hoover. Bertholdt.”

Everyone stares at her and she looks down, biting her lips.

“It makes him sound like he’s a geography teacher or some shit.”

The doctor smiles faintly.

“Right. Bertholdt. I’m afraid I’m not a bearer of good news.” The pain in Reiner’s stomach becomes blinding. “His injuries were too severe.” Historia falls on the chair next to Reiner’s. “We couldn’t reduce the swelling of his brain and when he went into cardiac arrest we were unable to make his heart start again.”

“No,” Ymir says, sternly.

“I’m sorry …”

“No! You’ll get your sorry ass back in there and you’ll save him, you moron. You hear me?”

The doctor is retreating in front of Ymir’s threatening finger. Tears are running down her cheeks but she doesn’t seem to notice. The surgeon looks around desperately for providential help. A nurse comes in the waiting room but before she intervenes, Annie catches Ymir by the shoulder, holding her back She's not crying, Her face is pale and a line has appeared on her forehead but she's keeping it together. Reiner looks at the scene, without really understanding it. Nor does he understand why his cheeks are so wet and why his heart is hurting so bad. Historia takes his hand and he squeezes it back. Somehow, he feels that she needs comfort and if he can’t really get why, he obliges all the same.

When Ymir has settled down next to Historia, the doctor comes back to Reiner. 

“If you want to see the body …”

Reiner shakes his head. He doesn’t want to go anywhere.

“No. I’m waiting for Bertholdt.”

Ymir and Historia share a look. He doesn’t see it but their eyes shine with the same light of incomprehension.

“You nut or what?” Ymir asks.

Tears have left shining creases on her cheeks and her eyes are still wet but she isn’t crying anymore.

“Leave it to me.”

Annie kneels in front of him, softly. Her face almost looks nice, her eyes almost convey something that could be mistaken for worry and Reiner actually has the time to think that she looks kind of pretty when she’s not so cold all the time before she slaps him on the cheek. It stings and burns at the same time and he instinctively brings his hand to his face, just in case she’s not finished with him. When the surprise has passed, he’s left with incomprehension and outrage and he feels anger starting to boil inside of him. He’s already having a rough day, he doesn’t need to deal with Annie’s mood swings.

“Listen to me very carefully Reiner because I’m not going to say that twice. Get that?” Anyone else saying that would have been cliché as hell and Reiner would have probably laughed to their face but Annie Leonhart is not anyone. Reiner would never admit it to anyone, but he’s always been a bit scared of her. So he nods miserably and she continues in her cold, curt voice : “Bertholdt didn’t deserve to be with a pussy like you but he made his choice and what I’m doing right now is for him, not for you. Make no mistake. So you’re gonna snap out of whatever shit is going into your mind and face it like a decent human being. I don’t care if you cry or shout or throw your fist into a fucking wall just do something for Christ’s sake!”

With those last words, she slaps him again as tears start running on her face.

“Bertholdt is dead.”

She raises her hand again but before she can crash it on Reiner’s face, he grabs her wrist. From this point on, it’s like time is frozen. Ymir and Historia are looking at them, speechless, none of them even thinking of doing something. Reiner and Annie stare into each other’s eyes, like two cats ready to jump on each other’s throat.

“Shut up.” His voice is unsteady with the tears in his eyes.

“You piece of shit,” she almost spits at him.

“Shut up! You think you’re so much better than me but you’re so full of yourself that you never even gave him a second glance. You never cared about anyone but yourself. You disgust me, Annie.”

For one second this sentence hangs in the air and no one even dares to breathe until Annie starts to laugh uncontrollably. Painfully.

“Like I care about what you think of me…”

Her laugh turns into sobs, dirty, ugly sobs, and it’s so unnatural seeing Annie’s face twisted in pain and sadness that Reiner lets himself fall in front of her and takes her into his arms. They might hate each other, they’ve both lost someone they loved and at the moment, it’s enough to bring them close.

Reiner feels Annie grab his shirt and cling onto it like a lifeboat and as she shakes against him, it finally sinks in.

Bertholdt is dead. Bertholdt will not come back. He will never see him again. He’ll have to leave this dreadful place without him. He’ll have to come home alone. The pain is almost unbearable. He doesn’t know what to do with himself and if Annie wasn’t there, holding him steady, he would probably fall into a black hole and never come back. And maybe that would even be preferable to feeling shattered, broken beyond repair, lifeless.

He feels Ymir helping him up. He doesn’t want to get on his feet but she’s stronger than she looks and he’s empty. The doctor - the stupid surgeon that couldn’t save Bertholdt’s life - is still there. Annie stands close to Reiner, strong and unbreakable. He admires her somehow, he envies her strength and courage.

“His family will have to be informed.”

Reiner closes briefly his eyes. His family. His parents. They shouldn’t learn the news from this moron in scrubs.

“I’ll do it.”

The doctor nods approvingly.

“If you want to see the body before we get him down to the morgue … You can deal with all the paperwork tomorrow.”

Body. Morgue. Paperwork. Is that even English? He recognises the words but they made no sense. He only knows pain. 

Reiner looks at Annie and for the first time what he sees in her eyes doesn’t look so strange. For the first time, they actually understand each other. He takes her hand and she leads him behind the doctor.

To see Bertholdt.

**Author's Note:**

> (Manga spoilers)  
> Still kinda frustated that we didn't get Reiner's reaction after Bert's death so here it is in AU (still hoping it will happen in canon - a girl can dream, right?). I also wanted Annie's reaction and the kind of impact it could have on Annie and Reiner's relationship.


End file.
